Few are the clear-sighted
Blind is the world. Few are those who clearly see. As birds escape from a net, few go to a blissful state.
(The Loka Vagga - The Dhammapada)
The Satipatthana Sutta in the Majjhima Nikaya [and the longer rendition in the Digha] is the major treatise on mindfulness.
The Buddha taught it to bhikkhus at a town now located near modern Delhi. As he probably walked about 500 miles and did not intend to return, he composed and structured a comprehensive discourse on Dhamma making two remarkable statements as he began and ended it.
He introduced it thus: 'Ekayano ayam bhikkhave maggo sattanam visuddhiya...' meaning 'this way, monks, leads only to the purification of beings...' often mis-translated as meaning 'the only way' or as 'the direct path'. The only way is the Eightfold Path and mindfulness or sati is the seventh factor of the path. At the end of the teaching, he assured that anyone practising it as instructed can expect one of two fruits: Nibbana or, if there is a trace of holding left, non-return (anagami phala) in 7 years to 7 days.
Practicable by lay persons
The Sutta confirms that jhana states are not essential to enter the path. It is therefore practicable by lay persons. But it is very difficult, as it requires a true understanding of basic Dhamma and indomitable striving.
The Buddha chose four states of mindfulness for development that enclose the salience of the entire teaching. The technique taught is a good example of the indirect method of the Dhamma. There must be intense personal commitment to penetrate all together the meaning of anicca, dukkha and anatta but not explicitly mentioned in the Sutta. It is facile to regard the Sutta as a composition of 21 methods of bhavana.
From consideration of limited space I shall have to assume that the reader is familiar with the contents of the Sutta. (I intend to write on it shortly in the Magga Series.)
In Dhamma, mindfulness is practiced with only one intention - develop control of the body and mind through developing wisdom. Venerable Sariputta says, 'The purpose of wisdom, friend, is direct knowledge, its purpose is full understanding, its purpose is abandoning.' [M. 43] The Buddha says, 'All things have desire for their root, attention provides their being, contact their origin, feeling their meeting place, concentration confrontation with them, mindfulness control of them, and deliverance is their core.' [A. 8.83] The Satipatthana Sutta covers all of these concepts by yoking samadhi and vipassana meditation.
Mindfulness, awareness, and insight
The Sutta begins with a training scheme to develop mindfulness, awareness, and insight of the body as it actually is, through mindfulness of in and out breathing [anapanasati], mindfulness of the disposition of the body [iriyapatha] and awareness of actions of the body [sampajanna]. The corollary is development of insight into the true foulness of the body parts to overcome delight for the body, [patikualamanasikara]; insight of the true elemental composition of the body to understand anatta, [dhatumanasikara]; and impermanence of the body from an imaginary cemetery scene where parts of the body lie dismembered, [navassivathika]. It is the base line for development of mindfulness of feelings and contemplating the mind.
Different potentialities
'And how, bhikkhus, does a bhikkhu abide contemplating feelings as feelings?' The Buddha now takes him through the full range of feelings from contact: worldly and unworldly pleasant, painful and neither, to develop insight of their arising and disappearance merely as feelings, unrelated to a self, and train to abide from not clinging to anything in the world through feelings.
This is the backbone of the Sutta. Contemplating on and understanding feelings lead to the mind. 'Feeling, perception and consciousness are conjoined, not disjoined, and it is impossible to separate each from each in order to describe their different potentialities; for what one feels, that one perceives, and what one perceives, that one cognizes...' [M. 43].
Developing mindfulness and insight into the working of the mind is the hardest part of the exercise. It is about perceiving the mind affected and not affected by greed, aversion, delusion of a self; about the contracted, exalted, surpassed and liberated state of the mind, and the opposites states.
This part of the training is to be practised when advanced and skilled in mindfulness and awareness.
Five items
For the fourth and last item, the Buddha made a classic summary selection of Dhamma. He recommended five items, generally translated as mind-objects: [1], the five hindrances to meditation [nivarana], [2] the five aggregates affected by holding [panc'upanakkhanda], [3] the six bases [salayatana], [4] the seven factors of enlightenment [bojjhanga], [5] the four noble truths [aryasacca]. In this section, the practitioner requires to have a correct understanding of basic things such as sankhara, namarupa, paticcasamuppada, vedana, sanna, vinnana, phassa, upadana as indeed to understand why contemplate on the body, feelings and mind. It draws together in a sweep a quintessence of Dhamma.
Under each of the four sections, the Buddha offers seven options for contemplation to develop insight. For example: 1 contemplate feelings as feelings internally, or 2 externally, or 3 internally and externally, or 4 their arising factors, or 5 their vanishing factors, or 6 both arising and vanishing factors, or 7 contemplate to the extent necessary for bare knowledge and mindfulness of 'there is feeling'. The practitioner may choose any one option and stick to it throughout the exercise. Perhaps the best is the last one.
Four satipatthana
Elsewhere, in a comprehensive discourse only on anapanasati, the Buddha says that it fulfils the four satipatthana. In a finale to consolidate understanding the Sutta, the Buddha describes elsewhere the disappearance of Satipatthana. 'Bhikkhus, I shall expound to you the origin and the disappearance of the four Satipatthana. The body has nutriment (ahara) for its origin and it disappears with cessation of nutriment.
Feeling has contact as their origin and disappears with the cessation of contact. Consciousness has namarupa for its origin and disappears with the cessation of namarupa. Mental objects have attention for their origin and ceases with the cessation of attention.'
Note that it is adequate to know, understand and practise only the Satipatthana Sutta to enter the path here and now.
